Lead Customer Advocacy Manager, APJ

An Overview of the Role

As the Customer Advocacy Lead for APJ, you will celebrate our customers and spotlight their achievements, turning GitLab's most successful customers into visible, influential champions. You will identify and activate advocates and their stories that showcase customer outcomes, support pipeline and revenue goals, and deepen trust in GitLab across Asia Pacific and Japan.

Reporting into the growth marketing organization, you will own the day-to-day development and delivery of customer advocacy initiatives in close partnership with APJ sales, marketing, and global teams. You will build trusted customer relationships, identify stories and advocates, and connect the right customers to references, campaigns, events, and executive engagements. Because APJ spans diverse markets, cultures, and time zones, you will tailor engagement to local context while creating programs that scale and align with global priorities.

In your first year, you will establish clear, measurable advocacy goals for the region, strengthen collaboration with regional stakeholders, and increase the visibility of customer outcomes across go-to-market motions. This is an opportunity to bring the voice of APJ customers forward and demonstrate GitLab’s impact on their business.

Some Examples of Our Projects

• Partnering with sales, pre-sales, and marketing to turn complex customer solutions into compelling narratives for campaigns, events, and executive engagements
• Creating and executing customer references, case studies, speaking opportunities, and other advocacy activities and programs across APJ markets

What You’ll Do

• Own the APJ customer story, reference and proof library, and associated pipeline.
• Build and nurture relationships with customer advocates, including senior stakeholders, and identify opportunities for references, case studies, events, and thought leadership.
• Manage the customer advocacy lifecycle: identify and recruit advocates, understand their goals, coordinate participation, and maintain mutually valuable relationships over time.
• Bring the voice of the customer into GitLab’s narratives, campaigns, and go-to-market plans by working with internal stakeholders to develop and amplify customer stories.
• Partner with regional and global sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams to align advocacy initiatives with pipeline, expansion, and retention priorities.
• Define and track program measures, such as advocacy participation, reference fulfillment, pipeline influence, and customer-story impact.
• Prioritize and coordinate advocacy requests that support strategic global and regional initiatives, using clear intake, fulfillment, and reporting processes.
• Adapt engagement and storytelling approaches to APJ’s varied markets and customer contexts, working effectively across cultures and time zones.
• Continuously improve programs, content formats, and engagement models using customer feedback, program data, and evolving business needs.

What You’ll Bring

• Experience building or delivering customer advocacy, customer marketing, customer reference, or related customer story programs in enterprise technology or SaaS.
• Strong history of creating impactful customer stories and proof, and an advanced understanding of the customer reference lifecycle.
• A track record coordinating across multiple markets, with an understanding of the considerations involved in serving APJ customers.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills and the ability to influence sales, marketing, customer success, and other stakeholders without relying on direct authority.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, including the ability to engage confidently with executive stakeholders on business and technical topics.
• Strong program management skills: you can prioritize competing requests, coordinate details across teams, and deliver reliably in a changing environment.
• Ability to work autonomously and asynchronously in a fully remote environment while staying aligned to shared goals and processes.
• Comfort defining and reporting on program performance, including customer participation, reference support, pipeline influence, and other measures tied to regional objectives.

About the Team

The Customer Advocacy team at GitLab helps turn our most successful customers into visible, influential advocates who drive awareness, trust, and revenue. This team builds and manages strategic relationships with customers to surface their stories, amplify their impact, and bring the voice of the customer into everything we do.

Originally posted on Himalayas